Captain James Jabara: Ace of the Korean War

By William B. Allmon | Aviation History  | 4 comments  |  Print This Post  |  Email This Post

For Jabara and other Sabre pilots, June 1953 was their greatest month. The Sabres sighted 1,268 MiGs, engaged 507 and destroyed 77.

Late on the afternoon of July 15, Jabara shot down his 15th MiG-15, making him a triple ace and the second-highest-scoring jet ace in Korea, next to Captain Joseph McConnell, who scored 16 MiG kills.

In all, Jabara flew 163 missions during his two tours of duty in Korea. Despite his many encounters with MiGs, Jabara was never wounded over Korea, nor were any of the Sabres he flew there damaged. In addition to his earlier decorations, Jabara received an Oak Leaf Cluster to his Distinguished Service Cross and a second Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery.

In late July 1953, after completing his second Korean tour, Jabara returned to the United States. In August he was sent to Yuma, Ariz., for duty with the 4750th Training Squadron. In January 1957, Jabara was with the 3243rd Test Group at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., where he flew Lockheed F-104 Starfighters. In February 1958, Jabara joined the 337th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Westover Air Force Base, Mass., again flying F-104s.

In August 1958, during the Quemoy and Matsu crisis with Red China, Jabara and the 337th went to Taiwan, where they flew their F-104s near the coast of mainland China for three months. ‘We used to fly up and down the Straits of Formosa at…twice the speed of sound,’ Jabara recalled, ‘and had the Chinese Communists take a look at us on their radar…I’m sure it shook them up a little.’

Jabara flew with the 337th until July 1960, when he returned to the United States and entered the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala. After graduation in June 1961, he took command of the 43rd Bomb Wing at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, where he flew supersonic Convair B-58 Hustler bombers. In July 1964, he took command of the 4540th Combat Crew Training Group at Luke Air Force Base, Ariz., where pilots from NATO countries were trained to fly the F-104G Starfighter.

Colonel Jabara took command of the 31st Tactical Fighter Wing at Homestead Air Force Base, Fla., in 1965. In 1966, with his tour at Homestead coming to an end, Jabara volunteered for combat duty in Vietnam. On November 17, 1966, he and his family were driving on Florida’s Sunshine State Parkway on their way to Myrtle Beach, S.C., where his family would wait out his planned Vietnam tour.

Jabara was in the back seat of a Volkswagen driven by his daughter, Carol Anne. Near Del Ray Beach, Fla., they came to a road construction site. Carol Anne lost control of the car, and the Volkswagen rolled over several times before stopping. Jabara and his daughter were rushed to a Del Rey hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival from head injuries. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery on November 24, 1966.

‘Heroes die young,’ Professor Craig Miner wrote. ‘Jabara died in his fighting prime, ready and able as ever to enter the cockpit and follow the target….We do not remember him as an old man telling of distant exploits, but as a young man in the midst of them.’ *

This article was written by William Allmon and originally published in the March 1995 issue of Aviation History magazine. For more great articles subscribe to Aviation History magazine today!

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Aces, Aerial Combat, Aviation History, Historical Conflicts, Korean War

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